


Unfortunate Attachments

by debit



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-28
Updated: 2011-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-23 04:19:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debit/pseuds/debit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seigaku regulars enroll in the Assassins' Guild.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unfortunate Attachments

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2007 during a very brief crack in my block, under a different name. I thought new fandom, new name, and no pressure might be the key to cracking it for good. Sadly, it lasted about two stories.

Viper House. Of course that had been his father's house, and of course there was no chance he'd be turned away because of some clerical error or lack of funds. It was part of the wossname, charter, that the son of a former graduate was always admitted. As Ryoma understood it, this was an opportunity most often taken advantage of by orphans.

Ryoma tried not to be too bitter that he hadn't managed to attain this status before orientation. After all, a person needs a goal, he thought, something to aim for.

And it would keep him motivated until graduation.

*

"At least it's not Cobra House," his new dorm mate Momoshiro said. "Just look at those bastards."

The bastards of Cobra House all lounged near their door as if they were not paying attention to anything and were terribly bored with being quite stylish while doing it. Even the big guy that looked like he was part troll, but especially the pretty one with the mole.

"Atobe," Momoshiro said with a scowl. "He doesn't intend to work after graduation. He's just here for the education, he says."

"So?"

"So then why has he already inhumed four students and one teacher?"

*

The dorm room was dark and drafty. The beds were hard, lumpy and bore suspicious stains Ryoma preferred not to examine too closely. But at least it didn't smell. He imagined he'd get used to it in time.

He wasn't so sure about the roommates. Well, Momoshiro was okay. But then there was the guy who hissed, and the one with the glasses who kept writing in notebooks, and the big guy who was quiet until he had a weapon in his hands. Ryoma didn't know how he'd manage to sneak up on anyone while yelling, "You die now! Burning!"

*

He wouldn't miss home, Ryoma thought, and the never ending frustration of his father's continual evasion of death. It might have even been tolerable had his father just resisted the urge to gloat afterward.

But no, the carefully hidden tiger trap in the back garden, the pungi sticks under the false step, the poison on the pages of his girly magazines: he'd seen through them all and given Ryoma a condescending pat on the head each time.

It was vexing, he thought. He was especially irate about the tiger. It had been a bitch to get it into the hole.

*

The girls from Black Widow House tended to moon over the older boys in Cobra House, with a few exceptions. Ann Tachibana liked to associate with the boys of Raven House where her brother was prefect.

Tomoka Osakada and Sakuno Ryuzaki seemed to always show up when Viper House was edificeering, ostensibly to cheer on the entire house, but regrettably tending to shout Ryoma's name more frequently than not.

This earned him no small amount of jeering from Cobra House, and especially from Atobe.

For years there were times Ryoma was surprised at how much he wanted to inhume him.

*

One of the first lessons they'd learned was there would be no killing for sport or petty, personal reasons. One was in bad taste; the other indicated lack of self control. This didn't stop some boys from trying.

Momoshiro and Kaidoh were the most frequent offenders. Repeated discipline did nothing but inflame them to even more outlandish attempts that ended up disrupting the entire house.

It was a relief when the Horio Incident, as it came to be known, caused them to work together as a team. Shortly after that Momoshiro never seemed to sleep in his own bed anymore.

*

Ryoma had known in a distant, theoretical sort of way, that some boys liked other boys. And now he knew that some boys hated other boys but loved kissing them, if the moaning and gasping were anything to go by.

To their credit, they tried to be quiet about it at night. But everyone knew why they always left dinner early and always together.

"It's the love that dare not speak its name," Kikumaru had said.

"Then why does it always moan 'Kaidoh'?"

He and Oishi had laughed about that. Inui had smiled, but still somehow managed to look sad.

*

"Of course it goes on at other houses," Fuji said. "But the masters try to discourage it. It leads to awkward moments in the field after graduation, supposedly." He kicked his legs idly over the roof's edge of the Tower of Art and added, "Attachments. You know."

Ryoma didn't know, actually. Thus far in his life he'd only been attached to his cat, and not in the manner they'd been discussing. That was wossname. Bestiality.

"What about you?"

Fuji smiled inscrutably. "I'm only really attached to my brother."

Ryoma figured that may have been why Yuuta transferred to Scorpion House.

*

It was tradition to hate Cobra House. Cobra House was where the rich kids went. They had feather beds, modern plumbing and wait staff. They were almost always at the top of the edificeering rankings.

But not because of cheating, Ryoma acknowledged, or bribery. They trained hard. Even Atobe.

He didn't even really mind Cobra House. After all, he'd grown up well off. His father had been at the top of his field before retirement.

But several years hadn't cooled his dislike for Atobe. It bothered him in ways he couldn't define, but always left him feeling hot and uncomfortable.

*

During free time, Tezuka and Inui played Stealth chess. Tezuka usually won, but got a lot of headaches. Oishi and Kikumaru practiced for the Wall Game and were always skinned and bruised everywhere. Momoshiro and Kaidoh usually went missing then came back with rumpled clothes and heavy eyes.

Ryoma fiercely practiced his edificeering, since it was hard to obsess about killing someone when you were busy trying to avoid falling to your death. It wasn't the jeering that got him, he decided while he slid down a few meters, then found another toehold. Maybe, he thought, it was the mole.

*

Then there was the Beauty Mark Incident. "That's what he calls it, anyway, the poncy bastard," Momoshiro said.

Then Kikumaru pointed out that Momoshiro shouldn't throw word stones while still poncing about in the glass house he shared with Kaidoh.

When Momoshiro denied he was the ponce Kaidoh hissed and meaningfully sharpened his Number Two throwing knife.

Then Momshiro started sleeping in his own bed again and Inui began to look cautiously hopeful.

Ryoma also thought that beauty mark was kind of a poncy thing to say. He didn't think too hard about why that seemed to make him happy.

*

When he saw Atobe the next day, something inside him seemed to revert to the age of twelve. He wanted to say, "I think your mole is probably cancerous" or maybe "Your hair is stupid."

What came out was, "Race you up the Bell Tower."

He was first, barely, and was on his back and trying not to pant when Atobe clambered over the roof's edge.

Ryoma grinned and said, "I won."

Atobe looked down at him, eyes dark and face shadowed, and said, very slowly, "So you did."

Typical, Ryoma thought. Sore loser.

The kiss was a total surprise.

*

If this was a fairy tale, there would have been nothing more than a happy ending after their first kiss. Atobe also wouldn't have minded being the princess.

Sadly, it was real life and Ryoma, while he'd subconsciously wanted something like this, hadn't reacted well to the shock of being suddenly kissed and knocked Atobe off the roof.

Luckily it wasn't that bad of a drop and only Atobe's ankle had broken. .

Ryoma tried to make up for it by bringing things to entertain him while recuperating in hospital.

"My prince," Atobe said with what Ryoma suspected was sarcasm.

*

"Everyone knows there's no such thing as the Tooth Fairy or the Soul Cake Duck."

"Um," Fuji said

"And only little kids still believe in the Hogfather," Momoshiro continued, not seeing how Kikumaru's smile crumpled or how Oishi's eyes dangerously narrowed as a result.

Kaidoh carefully didn't look at his stocking.

"Anthropomorphic personifications! As if," Momoshiro said to the tall and skinny new kid, Bill Something. "Right?"

INDEED, Bill said.

Ryoma would've wondered at how Fuji's eyes sharpened but was too busy panicking. There were only five shopping days until Hogswatch and he still hadn't found a gift for Atobe.

*

Kissing led to petting which led to mortifying sins of the flesh. Or so Ryoma had been told.

After his ankle had healed, Atobe had obviously decided to skip over the kissing part and right to the sins of the flesh.

It didn't feel especially mortifying, at least, not after Atobe had undressed too. More like slippery and hot. Suddenly Ryoma understood why Momoshiro had always been moaning out "Kaidoh."

Just then, Atobe stopped. "Did you just call me Kaidoh?"

"What? No. I didn't say stop, either," he added with a wriggle of encouragement.

It was only a little mortifying.

*

Ryoma froze in Atobe's casual embrace. They'd just had after graduation sex and moved on to the after graduation talk.

"Naturally, you won't work," Atobe said comfortably, as if it had already been decided.

"Very funny. Of course I'm going to work."

"Why would you want to? Traveling all the time, sneaking in and out of bedrooms—"

"—to kill people."

"Risking your life, probably picking up strange and horrible diseases—"

"—from killing people?"

"And anyway, you won't need to. I'll support you."

Ryoma'd imagined it differently, something like, "So, we'll fuck when I'm in town, yeah?"

*

It hadn't ended well. Atobe didn't understand Ryoma's reluctance to be treated like a pet.

"Not a pet," Atobe had said. "A kept lover. I'd simply feed you and house you and make sure you were well groomed and presentable at all times. Not the same thing at all."

"House me," Ryoma said flatly. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Well, it's not as if we could live together," he said. "I'm going to have to marry and get an heir some day."

And he had the nerve to look hurt when Ryoma ignored him at the graduation ceremony.

Bastard.

*

Ryoma saw the Disc after graduation. His work took him everywhere; Tsort, Klatch, Ephebe, Quirm, even the remote mountains villages of Lancre. He'd turned down the Lancre job after the initial reconnaissance; he didn't kill little old ladies for one, and for another she'd given him a look that told him he might not be the one to walk away.

And anyway, he could afford to be selective. He was the best, after all.

Still, one couldn't decline too many jobs without getting a reputation for being difficult.

He told himself that was why he'd accepted his most recent commission.

*

He meant to do it. He was a professional, and if a professional couldn't inhume a former schoolmate, well then he may as well give up and either become a common thug in the Shades or join the Watch.

There was no security, no guards or traps. At first he was puzzled, then grew angry when realization came.

Atobe even obliged him by being sweetly asleep. He looked the same. He still had the stupid hair.

The crossbow trembled in his hand.

Attachments. Fuck.

Even as Ryoma lowered the crossbow, Atobe opened his eyes.

"Took you long enough," he said.

*

"I could have killed you. Twice!"

"I knew you wouldn't."

"Possibly even three times!"

"But you didn't."

"But I could have!"

"I knew you wouldn't," Atobe repeated.

"You have no way of knowing that. You don't know what sort of dark and twisted paths I've walked. You don't know how this kind of work has warped my heart. You have no clue how—mmmph!"

This time there was no roof to fall off, and no broken bones. To be fair, Ryoma's tail bone was bruised when Atobe pushed him down to the floor, but that was hardly the same thing.

*

Afterward, they moved to the bed and Atobe spooned up behind him.

"Dark and twisted paths?"

"Shut up," Ryoma grumbled.

"That didn't sound like you meant it at all. Maybe you could try saying it from the depths of your warped heart."

"I'm still armed, you know."

"Sorry." Atobe kissed Ryoma's shoulder, then said in a serious voice, "I really am sorry."

Ryoma held himself still, then deliberately relaxed and said, cautiously, "Yeah, well. I was young and stupid too."

Atobe bit him. "You were young and stupid. I was just arrogant."

"Still. Armed."

"What a coincidence. So am I."

*

After a pleasurable but fruitless search for weapons, they settled down again.

"I'm going to have to refund my advance," Ryoma said casually. "Maybe take some vacation time."

Atobe tightened his arms and said, "That sounds lovely. I shall have to cancel my engagement."

Ryoma nodded, then frowned. "What about an heir?"

"There's a cousin twice removed somewhere in Überwald," Atobe said.

"What if he's a werewolf or a vampire?"

"Please. That's specieism. This is the Century of the Fruit Bat and we're above such things." But then he added under his breath, "As long as he's not an Igor."


End file.
